Arborescing

I am currently reading Richard Preston’s book, The Wild Trees. It is about a group of people and the record-height coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) they have been climbing for sport and research. This group pioneered the climbing of redwoods as a ‘thing’ in northern California and southern Oregon. Before them, those 300+ ft tall trees had never been climbed. A few arborist loggers may have previously climbed smaller redwoods, or partway up giant redwoods, but they did so in preparation to cut them down. They don’t count. The book’s protagonists climbed redwoods at first purely for sport, but became fascinated by redwood growth structure and the lichen and plant species living up there. This inspired them to earn advanced degrees studying the botany and ecology of those magnificent forest canopies.

The book is well researched and written, although a little too dragged out for me in places about the personal histories of some of the climbers, which I just skipped over. Nonetheless, I highly recommend it to climbers of all persuasions, cavers who practice single rope techniques in trees (aka tree stands), botanists and other natural science buffs, and really anyone who hangs it all out for any kind of first ascent adventure.

The book’s heroes are presented as the very first to ascend redwoods for sport, but they were not the first to explore tree canopies in general. Kids have been doing that since adults came down out of trees in the dawn of Mankind. Don Perry and Nalini Nadkarni were climbing rain forest giants in Costa Rica, and I was climbing bald cypresses (Taxodium distichum) and live oaks (Quercus virginiana) in Florida, when redwoods were first being climbed and named. We are products of our time. This article is about my own experiences, not theirs. I write it because Preston’s book has precipitated a flood of wonderful memories, so I want to jot some of them down and have a hurrah, hopefully not my last.

I began climbing huge trees as a sport in my mid- to late twenties, near the close of the 1970s. I lived in the sandhills south of Archer, Florida, within walking distance – a mile or two – of karstic wooded pastures dominated by mesic semi-evergreen forests. In Florida, these are called “hammocks” by naturalists like me who were born and raised in the state. The word is very close to and derived from the word used by Native Americans for that habitat type.

The first giant tree I climbed was a bald cypress appx six feet in diameter at breast height (dbh). It was hollow from the ground up and clear through its storm-broken top, which is how it escaped being killed by 19^th Century loggers. Many redwoods also have storm-broken tops, but where redwoods then sprout new vertical leaders that continue to aspire toward the clouds, cypresses have only horizontal limbs at their tops after storm damaging. Odd that, considering the two are phylogenetically close cousins.

I climbed that first tree – solo – using a 45 lb bow and an aluminum-shafted arrow, its hollow core filled with sand to give it the ass needed to pull lines up into canopies. The arrowhead’s metal tip was replaced with a little ball to prevent the arrow from sticking into the tree. Mounted to the front of the bow was a bowfishing spool loaded with 100 lb test monofilament fishing line. My first attempts almost ended in disaster. The spool was not designed for monofilament as large as 100 lb test. I never found out what it WAS designed for, but I can tell you that the monofilament did not come slickly off the spool, instead grabbing onto the spool and rubber-banding the arrow back toward my face! Yow!

Under Plan B, I cleared small bushes and sticks from a patch of ground below the tree, spread a tarp over the spot, and flaked out onto the tarp a length of monofilament about twice the estimated height of the tree. Then I shot the arrow over a large limb, and fortunately neither the arrow nor the line got snagged in branches. After the arrow slid back to earth, I removed it from the mono, tied an eighth-inch nylon cord to the mono, and hauled that line up over the limb and back down to the tarp. Lastly, I used the cord to pull an 11 mm diameter caving rope over the limb and back down. Tying one end of the rope to the base of an adjacent tree, I used mechanical ascenders made for sport climbing to reach the treetop.

Bruce “Sleazeweazel” Morgan and I further modified that technique for use in places where there was too much low growth, such as in hammocks overrun with catbriar (Smilax spp.). I would hold the bowfishing rig and the arrow firmly, a hundred feet or so from the target tree, and Bruce would take the monofilament in hand and slowly walk to the tree while I played out the mono as it slipped through his fingers and off the spool. He had to be very careful to keep the line from draping down into the briars. Upon reaching the tree, there would be a double line of mono between us, half of it going from the bow to him and the other half going from him back to the arrow. I would aim the arrow and do a countdown, three… two… one… FIRE! He would release the mono simultaneously with the arrow’s release. The latter would fly toward the tree canopy so fast that the mono didn’t have time to drop into the catbriar vines. As you can imagine, I had to be very careful with my aim. There was a lot of trust going on there.

Caving rope works better for this than climbing rope. Caving (static) rope stretches very little under load, so it is excellent for climbing with mechanical ascenders. Climbing (dynamic) rope OTOH stretches a lot, as it is designed to catch falling climbers without snapping their spines. Being a caver, I have a bunch of caving ropes, ascenders for going up ropes, racks for rappelling down ropes, sit harnesses to attach ascenders and racks to, and other vertical gear like carabiners, rescue pulleys, and slings made of one-inch tubular webbing.

The bowfishing rig is a pain in the bum to carry through the woods and a pain in the other bum for launching monofilament line. Thick brush and dense tree foliage often require multiple arrow shots before the line goes where you want it to go. So, I developed a different system of using three lassos to get off the ground. I would reach as high up the trunk as I could, wrap the first lasso around the tree trunk, and climb the lasso’s tail using ascenders. Then, while still hanging on the first lasso, I would reach up and tie a second lasso above the first. Then I would move my ascenders over to the second lasso, remove the first lasso from the tree, and repeat. The third lasso was a safety, to be used if I accidentally dropped one of the other lassos. I would attach the main rope to my harness as I ascended the lassos, trailing it as I climbed. Upon attaining the canopy, I would drape the rope over a limb and hand-over-hand one end back down to the ground. Its other end would be tied to a solid anchor before I began climbing the tree. I would rappel back down to the ground on the standing (loose) end when I was done for the day. I could also use the rope, lassos, or slings as belay safeties.

The lasso method is best suited for solo climbing, which I did a lot of because it was hard to find others wanting to explore treetops. I did a lot of first ascents in those days. I was unaware that tree climbers in California named trees, and I didn’t think to do that. Later, I learned that another caver in my hometown had independently invented the exact same lasso system, also for climbing large cypress trees. Maybe others did that?

I didn’t like calling what I was doing “tree climbing.” That phrase seemed boring. I felt that “tree climbing” was an appropriate way to refer to low-limb hanging out, arborist tree work, and kid stuff, but what I was doing was too technical and sophisticated for casual-speak. Sniff. I mentioned this to woods buddy Tom Morris, and he suggested the word “cypressing.” It was a take-off from other climbers inventing the words “bouldering” and buildering,” respectively used for climbing boulders and buildings.

But “cypressing” was not an appropriate word for climbing trees that were not cypresses. By then, I had bought and studied Basic Rockcraft and Advanced Rockcraft, two books by Royal Robbins, to learn climbing techniques not taught in technical caving books. The two most popular of the latter are Alpine Caving Techniques by Georges Marback and Bernard Tourte, and On Rope by Bruce Smith and Allen Padgett, both of which I own and have read. But trees are not built like rocks or caves, so I modified some of Robbins’ tricks and created others for climbing Southeastern species like pines (Pinus spp.) and oaks (Quercus spp.). I used vertical caving methods to ascend and rappel in trees. As it turns out, huge old cypresses are simple in structure, so while rock-climbing techniques and technology are helpful in the monkey-gym canopies of middle-aged pines and oaks, they aren’t really needed in elder cypress trees.

I finally came up with a word that I liked: “arborescing.” That word can be applied to all species of trees climbed, and is within the tradition of other climbing eponyms. It surprises me that other tree climbers do not use that word; it seems so obvious and righteous to me.

One day, Robert “Bob” Simons called. He was another of my woods buddies. Bob was a forester and an absolute expert at identifying tree species in northeast Florida. He is the person who taught me about champion trees: what they are, who keeps tabs on them, how to measure them for nominations, and the best places to look for them. At the time, he had made the second-highest number of successful champion nominations in the USA, with only one other person nominating more. I helped him measure several trees for national champion and state champion status, including two species of hawthorns (Crataegus uniflora and C. pyracanthoides). I took up the hobby of nominating champion trees at Bob’s urging, all but one of which by now have died or been deposed by larger findings. The exception is a fringe-tree (Chionanthus virginicus), which is normally a medium-sized bush. This champion is a true tree, almost a foot in dbh and 30+ ft high.

Bob had called because a wildlife biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission named David Maehr had found a black bear (Ursus americana) den in a hollow cypress tree. The tree was 5-6 ft dbh and perhaps 60 or 80 ft tall, with a storm-decapitated top. Dave wanted someone to climb the tree and collect information about its top. He assured me that the bear was not in the den at the time. There’s that trust thingy again. I used the simple tarp and bowfishing rig to attain the treetop, collected the data, and rappelled back down. Buddy bear was not there. That was the last cypress tree that I ever climbed.

One fine early summer morning, I hiked out from my home in the Archer sandhills, walked about 1.5 miles, and found myself in an old-growth mesic hammock dominated by live oaks up to 7 ft dbh. The hammock had a winged elm (Ulmus alata) about 3 ft dbh and >100 ft tall, the largest I have ever seen. This hammock also had a moderately large Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora). At the edge of the hammock was a Southern red-cedar (Juniperus salicicola) that was 17+ ft cbh (circumference at breast height). The then-national champion Southern red-cedar was in a nearby town and had a 15+ ft cbh, but the 17-footer was open-grown and thus not as large overall as the champ. Of course I climbed it.

I was particularly enamored of the live oaks. They were “forest-grown,” as opposed to “open-grown.” A forest-grown tree sprouts within a preexisting forest where it has serious competition for sunlight and other resources. Such seedlings can remain small for years, even decades if they are shade-tolerant, until an overstory tree dies. This allows more sunlight to reach the ground, so the seedling can then race its siblings skyward, growing fast and with a relatively straight trunk and compact canopy. Open-grown trees OTOH are often seen in pastures, and have short, thick trunks topped with long horizontal limbs. Open-grown trees have most of the sunlight and groundwater that’s available, as their only competition is puny grass, so they don’t need to grow tall. One of the hammock’s 6 ft dbh forest-grown live oaks was still more than 4 ft in diameter fifty feet above the ground. It is my favorite live oak of all time.

After discovering this hammock, I later climbed several of its live oaks and the big winged elm, all using my bowfishing rig. But you can’t just climb up a rope and then clamber onto the limb it’s draped over. Their limbs are more than a foot thick and clothed in a dense carpet of resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides). The rope has to be hung from a limb above the one you want to explore. It can take some time to figure out where you want your rope to go and then get it there successfully, so binoculars are useful. I got into the habit of carrying a bag lunch for when I could finally relax on a brontosaurian neck of a limb fifty or eighty feet above ground. By the time I finished my climb and my lunch, I had become so accustomed to the limb swaying in the breeze that I wouldn’t even notice that I was sitting on a soundless metronome.

And I don’t care who knows it – I would take a small jar containing red wine up there to celebrate first ascents. This was a time when Russian cavers proposed that cavers all over the world, on the Fourth of July (in deference to American cavers), should raise a toast (vodka, in deference to themselves) within a cave to all the world’s cavers. It was a woke idea – one big, happy, global caving family. I liked it, and politicked for it at my local caving club meetings, but my American comrades were so safety prudish that the very idea of drinking alcohol in a cave was scorned. But I am an omega male.

In the beginning, I would hike to the hammock on Saturdays. It was a way to put my job firmly behind me for the weekend. But I went out there one Sunday instead and encountered something that blew me away. While munching lunch up in a live oak, rock-and-roll music suddenly blasted out from somewhere below. It seems that there was an African-American church only a hundred yards or so away from my tree, and after the sermon, the church-goers began making wicked good music! Bo Didley lived then in nearby Archer, so who knows? All I can tell you is that congregation rocked out. Taking advantage of yet one more reason to wander around in the woods, I started hiking out to my fav trees on Sundays instead of Saturdays. I could tend my garden any day of the weekend, but I could listen to fantastic live rock a mile from my home only on Sundays.

One neat memory of being up in the live oaks is of a Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). It landed ten feet away from me there, out on a limb. It cocked its head and looked me up and down, and made a weak, rising call that sounded like “Whaaaaaaa?” I’m sure it had never seen a human up high in a tree. Preston mentions similar experiences with a spotted owl (Strix occidentalis) and a western flying squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus) in redwood canopies.

Another favorite arbor memory concerns resurrection ferns growing on live oak limbs. From the ground, it looks like ferns grow over the top and both sides of limbs, being missing only along limb bottoms due to low amounts of sunlight and rainwater there. However, sitting up in a live oak, you see that the center of the top of the limb is also devoid of ferns. They are trampled into well-worn trails by mammals traveling around in the oak’s canopy. Looking closer, you see the trail accumulates feathers, hair, seeds, dust, soil, oak leaves, acorn hulls, maple seed wings, arthropod exoskeletons, feces, and whatever else is deposited by the wind. Live oak canopies are not just treetops; they are ecosystems fertilized and inoculated by myriad biota.

Redwood climbers also mention plants growing in soil that has accumulated in nooks and crannies in redwood treetops. Preston claims that redwood canopies harbor only a few animals due to the tree’s harsh resins and distasteful leaves. However, wildlife is common in the hardwood trees of the tropics and subtropics. Epiphytes like orchids and bromeliads are popularly listed in warm climes, but I have also seen prickly pear cactus (Opuntia sp.), dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), pokeberry (Phytolacca rigida), and other ground plants up there. Preston mentions bonsai rowan (Sorbus sp.) trees in Scotland’s pines.

In Costa Rica, Nalini Nadkarni found roots growing out of tree canopy trunks/limbs and into deadwood wedged in branch forks. I read her report of that back in the day and went looking for it here in the States. I never found such a thing in live oaks, but did within the hammock’s above-mentioned Southern magnolia. Visiting my mom in the Appalachian Mountains, I found the phenomenon also in a Great Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum).

Preston’s book is as much about the explorers of redwood canopies as it is about redwoods and tree climbing. The hero of the book is a tree canopy biologist name Steve Sillett, who earned a PhD studying redwood canopies. Sillett realized something that I never did until reading Preston’s book, and I thank them for pointing it out. Up in the hammock’s live oaks, I assumed that the dense growths of resurrection ferns and their accompanying green-fly orchids (Epidendrum conopseum = E. magnoliae) and lichens were taking advantage of the trees’ large sizes. Sillett, however, learned that many plant and lichen species are in redwoods not because the trees are big, but because they are extremely old. He found that some lichen and fungus species occur only in multi-thousand-year-old trees, and that some of them have circum-boreal ranges in similarly ancient trees in North America, Europe, and Asia. He wonders how and if, in our warming biosphere, they will ever find their way into the vastly younger second-growth redwoods that are replacing the lumbered titans.

I paused my reading of Preston’s book to write this article. I got excited while reading about redwood arborescing, so spending a day to get all of this off my chest has been something of a catharsis. I will now go back to the book. Maybe when the weather cools in September, I will finish setting up a rope stand in a 100 ft tall black oak (Quercus velutina) that I started arborescing a couple of years ago but stopped due to an ankle injury. I just wish I could skywalk the way that redwood climbers and professional arborists do. There is an old-growth mixed hardwood forest near where I now live; maybe someday I can get up into some of its ancient trees and for some citizen science.

My first recollection of Steven Christman PhD was of my boss, Sam Snedaker PhD, coming into my office to say that he wanted me to meet someone who impressed him, someone that he wanted me to take on field collection trips. At that time, Sam and his colleague Ariel Lugo PhD had a multi-year funded research project to assess the fate of radionuclides in the environment around the Crystal Nuclear Power Plant. A graduate student and I had been collecting plant and animal samples for radionuclide and stable isotope analyses. Sam said that, although only a junior at the University of Florida, Steve had already published four papers in science journals about herps (reptiles & amphibians). Steve had been to Vietnam during the war there, and was studying to become a herpetologist under the GI Bill. He was a moderately large fellow, in good physical shape, a capable field technician, friendly, energetic, and enthusiastic about field sampling. It was a pleasure to have him join me in field work.

Steve and I shortly afterward went to the project area to sample for herps, but he was particularly eager to capture an Eastern diamondback (EDB) rattlesnake. We wandered around the project area snagging various species, but focused on microhabitats he thought most likely to host EDBs. Eventually, we went to the power plant’s construction dump and found one, a three-plus-footer that was about as thick as his forearm. It was not particularly large for an EDB, but a diamondback of any size is a formidably venomous beast, and this one was as eager to bite Steve as Steve was to catch it! He had caught many kinds of snakes by that time in his life, but never before an EDB. He had a snake stick – possibly a modified golf club, I forget exactly – but the snake wasn’t cooperating.

You need to understand that an EDB is not an ordinary snake. It is the largest by weight of all the North American rattlesnakes, has very large venom glands, and hypodermic fangs at least five-eighths of an inch long. Its thick body is the most muscular of all the North American snakes, so pinning its head down with a snake stick and then grabbing it behind the head means pinning the head properly, having a strong catch hand, being quick enough to grab the back end of the snake with the other hand before it can thrash itself out of the catch hand, and having the confidence to know that you are capable of doing all of that.

You also need to understand that being bitten by an EDB means you are going to be pretty far away from your vehicle and out in trackless woods, so it will take a while before you can get to a hospital. Although the venom is not as deadly as that of an elapid like a cobra or coral snake, it is quite potent, is injected deeply into your tissues, and a large quantity is injected at a time. The net result is that you will probably live, but you may permanently lose the use of the bitten thumb and may have health issues for the rest of your life.

I have seen experienced herpetologists handle EDBs with confidence, but this was Steve’s first, so you can understand why he was super wary of being bitten. He was bug-eyed and hyperventilating as though he was facing a huge and angry bull. He realized he needed an advantage. While he kept the snake from escaping into the dump, I searched around and found a 20-gallon steel drum without a lid, and brought it over to them. Steve handed me his pillowcase snake bag, whereupon we discovered with dismay that was too small for its opening to wrap completely around the drum’s rim. So, we positioned it as best we could, pillowcase mouth opened in a lopsided and contemptuous sneer, and he picked up the snake with his tool. The snake immediately slithered off it. After a couple more false starts, he finally succeeded in dropping the animal into the pillowcase. He quickly grabbed the drawstring and yanked it tight, enclosing and securing the EDB. We laughed like madmen, and that evening drank more than our fair share of beer.

Sam convinced Archie Fairly Carr PhD, professor of herpetology at UF, to allow Steve and me to tag along on a trip to Seahorse Key. Ordinarily, such trips hosted by Dr. Carr are only for graduate students, but Sam talked him into letting us go too. This island is owned by the University of Florida, and has a wading bird rookery in a willow swamp within its interior. The rookery was famous not for the rookery itself, but because it was the home of dozens, if not hundreds, of cottonmouth water moccasin snakes (Ancistrodon piscivorous) that kept predators out of the rookery. No raccoon, otter, rat, or opossum dared try feeding on the baby birds due to the snakes’ presence. The cottonmouths certainly fed on nestlings that fell out of the nests, and perhaps snagged a few more on nests left unattended by their parents, but the egrets had to pay a pound of flesh for their protection.

We listened to Dr. Carr respectfully, but Steve had something else in mind. He was after Florida worm lizards, Rhineura floridana. Being in the family Amphisbaenidae, they can be thought of as odd, two-legged reptiles classified somewhere between snakes and lizards. Steve was the first scientist to discover that running the tines of a potato rake through the sand at the bases of cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto) could turn up worm lizards. He had read that only two had ever been found on Seahorse Key, so was keen to see if they could be found there in association with cabbage palms.

The boat docked at the island and we all disembarked, walked over to a shaded pavilion, and Dr. Carr gave us an impromptu lecture on the island’s history, its rookery, and the egrets’ association with cottonmouths. Then he told us to spread out, explore, and focus on whatever we were interested in, after which he just turned around and disappeared solo into the bush. Hmmm, my kind of professor, my kind of “field work.” Steve and I headed for cabbage after cabbage after cabbage. He combed at the base of each one with his potato rake, and did catch some Rhineuras. At one point in the day, Dr. Carr saw us foraging and came over to us to say that there was one of the largest water moccasins he had ever seen over on the island’s beach. Steve and I immediately did a fast walk in that direction, led by Dr. Carr, and wow! Just wow! That cottonmouth was more than five feet long! That species regularly attains lengths of three-plus feet, and rarely four feet, but not five-plus. Dr. Carr said it was a female that had probably recently given live birth to a Medusa’s-nest of babies, and now she was looking for something to put back into her belly.

Dr. Carr then left us to go find more students to show the reptile to, and Steve and I continued exploring the island. Needless to say, he continued combing for worm lizards. By the end of the day, he had caught four. As everyone reassembled at the pavilion, Steve showed off his catches, and Dr. Carr was as bug-eyed over Steve’s findings as we were by his champion cottonmouth. The famous professor just couldn’t get over the fact that Steve had caught twice as many in one day as the previous collections of dozens of other herpetologists over a several-decades period. Steve had made a new friend. Dr. Carr had made a new friend. It was a good day.

Steve went on from there to earn a PhD in herpetology at UF. I never again went into the field with him, as he had school to deal with and I moved on to another job. He and I did get together in our elder years at Sleazeweazel’s parties. We’d sit in rockers on the upper porch deck and watch the younger mobs eating, dancing, and chatting around the campfire. We didn’t talk much. By then he was more subdued than when we were twenty-something. The old Steve did not seem to me to be the same man as the young Steve, but I wasn’t either. He is gone now. R.I.P. old friend.

Torrey Squirrels

Question: Can the Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) be employed in the assisted migration of Torreya taxifolia? 

Historically, Torreya Guardians have been wary of seed predation on Florida torreya by the gray squirrel because of their appetite for its large seeds. However, my brief literature review indicates that the gray squirrel may be useful to Guardians, as this rodent is known to distribute significant numbers of the large seeds of torreyas and other species into microhabitats conducive to torreya establishment, bury seeds to suitable germination depths, cull seeds containing seed-predator insects & other debilitating factors, and occurs within a suitable geographical range. Therefore, I have assembled the information below so that Torreya Guardians can take a closer look at the roles that the gray squirrel might provide in (1) enlarging the geographic range of the Florida torreya northward of the presumed range of the torreya pathogen and (2) significantly increasing the torreya populations within that enlarged range.

Torreya Guardians already know that the Eastern gray Squirrel can affect our assisted migration tactics. This rodent (1) raids mother trees of their seeds, (2) steals potted seeds, and (3) caches seeds in developed areas and wildlands that can germinate and grow into naturally occurring individuals and colonies. Although we know this third thing, and we are happy about it when new seedlings “volunteer,” we have historically focused on the first two annoyances. In my view, this is because our historical charge has been to propagate and migrate, and obviously, we cannot increase the population until we learn how to propagate and nurture it. I believe we have now done those two things well enough to start looking at natural colonization strategies.

Being a wildlife biologist who sees mammals as the natural dispersers of Florida torreyas – not wind or water or birds – I suggest that wildlife biologists assess the potential for expanding (1) colony sizes of existing artificially planted trees, (2) leapfrog colonizations near existing artificial individuals and colonies, and (3) large-scale colonizations within national and state forestlands. However, as Daniel Boone exhorted, we must be sure we are right before we go ahead. My literature research indicates that there is only one good candidate for spreading the Florida torreya in the Eastern U.S., and that is the Eastern gray squirrel. Ergo, I have focused below only on that species.

The gray squirrel forages for, among other things, the relatively large seeds (= fruits, nuts) of trees such as the walnut (Juglans nigra), hickories (Carya spp.), oaks (Quercus spp.), and chestnuts & chinkapins (Castanea spp.). Chestnut trees historically were particularly reliant on gray squirrels, but the pines, beech, hazel, and oaks also benefit greatly, and so probably does the Florida torreya.

Foraged seeds that contain seed-predator insects are eaten immediately, whereas pristine seeds are stored for later consumption, especially as winter food. Seeds are stored individually via burial to depths of at least one inch, one source claiming below the frost line. Seeds may also be deliberately cracked before burial, it is said to prevent germination. Seeds are generally stored relatively closely to the finding gray squirrel’s nest tree, but can also be dispersed over an area of up to seven acres. One study revealed that gray squirrels can re-find up to two-thirds of the nuts they buried.

Gray squirrels employ a mnemonic storage technique called “spatial chunking” (also seen in rats), where seeds are sorted and buried according to size, type, and possibly taste and food value. By spatial chunking, zoologists mean that, for instance, hickory nuts will be buried in one area and oak acorns in a separate place. It has also been found that gray squirrels store preferred seeds in wide open spaces, possibly to increase a robber’s risk of predation when randomly foraging away from cover. Presumably, the storing squirrel experiences less risk because it knows where its seeds are buried, can go directly to them, and thus be less jeopardized by predators.

Another way that gray squirrels try to prevent neighboring squirrels from stealing their stores is the tactic of “deceptive caching;” that is, they only pretend to bury a nut, especially if they see another squirrel watching them.

Gray squirrels immediately consume insects they serendipitously find imbedded within seeds. Furthermore, while nest-caching squirrel species store pristine and insect-containing seeds together and thus increase seed-feeding insect populations, the gray squirrel’s habit of storing only pristine seeds and storing them separately acts to limit seed-predator insects. This practice could also limit seed-fungi infestations, which is another potential subject for research.

Gray squirrels are important in forest regeneration, much more so than other North American squirrel species. Of all the North American squirrel species, only the gray squirrel stores most of its hoard in individual caches scattered over a wide area in locations that include those that do not already have forest tree cover. Studies show that gray squirrels bury 97% of the seeds they find and immediately eat only the 3% that contain insects. Studies show widely variable rates of gray squirrels’ re-finding their caches, one being 70% and another only 36%. The remaining seeds were eaten by other animals (one study lists 20%) and only 10% germinating. Nevertheless, those that do germinate are likely to be the ones furthest from the nest tree and thus naturally disseminated. The net effect of planting so many healthy & insect-free seeds is that vigorous & genetically superior trees are selected for in the forest regeneration process.

Other North American species of squirrels tend to use nest caches. For example, the red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) stores most of its seeds in tree cavities and buries only 11% of them. Seeds stored in tree cavities will not germinate nor aid in forest regeneration. The red squirrel is thus considered a seed predator and not a forest regenerator.

Similarly, the Indochinese flying squirrels (Hylopetes phayrei) and particolored flying squirrel (Hylopetes alboniger) in southern China’s rain forests chew two grooves in the shells of smooth, egg-shaped or rounded nuts to wedge them firmly between branch crotches. The grooves hold the nut between the branches much like a sturdy mortise-tenon joint that carpenters use to attach legs onto furniture. They choose smaller saplings, placing caches roughly 2 m above the ground and 10-25 m from the nearest nut-producing tree. This makes sense in their humid environment, as a seed stored in the ground or dead log would rapidly either rot or germinate, and a seed falling out of a tree crotch would be quickly found and eaten by other herbivores. Thus, these two squirrel species are also seed predators.

Answer: Gray squirrels are expected to disperse the Florida torrey regardless of our intentions, so plant one and just stand back!

The Vertical Forest

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are famous, although no one knows where they were physically located. There is even some doubt whether this garden ever actually existed, as it was only the Babylonian priest Berossus who wrote in 290 BCE from first-hand (?) sightings. Regardless, so many of us want it to be true, and try to make it true of our own ‘castles,’ even if only in small part. 

I have mixed feelings about it. I love plants. Plants are gods, replacing wastes with the vapors and substances needed by the living. We keep small plants indoors for their ambiance, and larger perennials in landscaping features to hide rude concrete and steel and to provide for wildlife. But we fear large trees next to our houses and paved driveways, and are right to eschew them. Only shrubs and small tree species are allowed within falling-limb and pavement-buckling distance of most abodes. But mirages of hanging gardens still sway in the whims of my daydreaming mind.

An Italian architect named Stefano Boeri and his staff designed two residential towers in Milan, Italy, called Il Bosco Verticale, or The Vertical Forest. At 80 m and 112 m in height, they host appx 20,000 plants in balcony containers. This greenery is comprised of perennial herbaceous flowers, shrubs, and small and medium-sized trees. I think it also includes lianas, but that is not stated in media articles. The two towers are sweet, if not exactly lush. For example, the greenery is in spots rather than sweeps and washes, as it appears that nothing is allowed to grow on exterior walls. Furthermore, gardener pruning keeps plants well separated.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/riba-vertical-forest-stefano-boeri/index.html

The carbon footprint of the spectacle has been assessed, concluding that it would take many decades for its flora to offset construction impacts and maintenance costs. This is in large part due to the additional structural needs for supporting the heavy weight of the plants and their containers, potting media, and water. In addition, the large balconies, being appx 40% of the total floor space, are quite heavy.

Another limit on the carbon footprint offset is the need for three gardeners working nearly year-round to clip the flora. Firstly, most plants really do not need to be clipped. Secondly, this keeps exterior walls possibly overly exposed to the elements. Thirdly, gardeners are expensive. Are three gardeners working nearly year-round really necessary? For example, one video depicts gardeners pruning low-growing flowering plants even though most perennial cultivars exhibit self-limiting growth simply by dying back in the winter. Planting small and medium-sized trees also appears to be a mistake, both because of their weight and the need for artificial irrigation and pruning. Shrubs grow plenty large on balconies, and annual pruning easily ensures that they do not grow too heavy.

The videos and articles I have seen do not mention how the plants get watered. Watering can be done automatically with drip irrigation systems, or by shunting rainwater into plant containers, or by choosing drought-tolerant cultivars that are fine when watered only when it rains. Too, water is heavy, so keeping plants small and maintaining only relatively small plant containers reduces the load on and size of such balconies.

Thus, the building’s carbon footprint can be reduced substantially by growing smaller, more drought-tolerant plants in smaller containers on smaller balconies.

Another weakness of the Milan Vertical Forest is the value placed on the amenity that the vegetated balconies were supposed to offer residents. The architect doubtless envisioned residents having breakfast and dinner there, relaxing outdoors with a good book, or perhaps having a smoke while enjoying the scenery. However, Milan’s climate is evidently too chilly for most of the year, so residents remain nearly entirely indoors when home. Conversely, some cities are simply too hot for hanging out outside during summer.

After I ran across and enjoyed several Vertical Forest articles and videos, several people coincidentally posted articles on it on Facebook. A bunch of sharks on one site piled on the idea in a virtual feeding frenzy, falling all over themselves to pan the idea. It never ceases to amaze me that invention is literally always attacked by those who are unable to understand that prototypes are deliberately designed to find their own flaws so that future editions can be informed and become better. You can see some of that in the above text where I mention how some of the invention’s flaws can be easily mitigated. So, I decided to review the cartilaginous fish attacks to see if they had come up with any issues that I could not think of potential solutions for off the top of my head. Here goes:

AM: “Structure engineer had their math cut out on this project…”

Buford: Hmm, what does this comment mean, anyway?

 

WS: “I can only imagine the insect problem in this building.”

Buford: Why would the “insect problem” be any different in this building than in any other city building? For one thing, if this building were plopped down anywhere that I have ever lived, it would have many birds and lizards consuming the insects. Whatever, there are more plants around my single-story house than there are on the balcony of any of the vertical forest’s apartments. Dumb.

 

MO: “When good intentions go bad..roots verses concrete.. good luck if you’re living in that.”

Buford: Roots are not a problem in the proper plant containers. Duh.

 

AR: “It may work if it was designed for that purpose the roots may be controllable with the hydroponic system however all that being said moisture and concrete are not long term friends…”

Buford: Hydroponic systems are heavy and would have large labor costs in a vertical apartment forest. FYI, concrete and moisture are actually lovers – concrete continues to set long after you think it is dry. Indeed, concrete sets better underwater than under air. And anyway, if moisture were such a problem with buildings, then why is it so popular as a construction material all over the world? Do your due diligence.

 

PM: “…the cyclic loading from winds going through the trees couldn't possibly have been accounted for.”

Buford: This comment cracks me up. LOOK at the picture! In the first place, there is no more windage with than without the veggies. Secondly, PM is evidently not really aware of just how thorough professional architects are. THEY do THEIR due diligence.

 

WL: “In fact it might not even be possible to safely construct and operate such a building. The water it would require would be terribly heavy and difficult to manage.”

Buford: In fact, it was indeed safely constructed and is currently being safely operated because it was designed by architects who did their homework, and it was permitted by professionals who did their due diligence, too.

 

MEW: “This cannot be a good thing.”

Buford: What cannot be a good thing? We cannot read your mind.

 

MMB: “Well, you also need to look at the long term side effects...”

Buford: What long-term side effects? Oh, and can MMB possibly imagine that one of the purposes of prototypes is to “look at long-term side effects?”

 

BKB: “…it wouldn't last one windstorm in Alaska…”

Buford: This comment cracks me up. BKB apparently thinks something like this might even be designed for an Arctic or Antarctic locale (!); or that it is not a good idea for Miami or Houston because it wouldn’t be a good idea in Alaska, or something…

You get the picture. These people haven’t a clue about architecture, irrigation, plants, insects, birds, concrete, windage, logic, grammar… My suggestion to the OP of the thread is to delete asinine comments and Block dummies. That is what I do on my FB page. That way, thoughtful, informed, educated, progressive people could share reasonable information.

 

Pipsissewa Wilting

After building my house and moving into it, it seemed worthwhile to rent the adjacent pad where I lived in an RV travel trailer during the construction process. I signed up with hosting platforms Airbnb and Hipcamp, prepared site profiles, and then stood back, poured myself a cup of French roast, and waited for new friendships and income to roll in.

Both hosting platforms provide extensive and helpful instructions and advice to new hosts like myself. I was particularly impressed with the ability for prospective tenants to review host sites within standardized formats for ready comparisons. There also are provisions for hosts to provide additional information that does not fit into their standard forms’ boxes, and there are several ways that hosts can get further advice on setting up profile webpages; e.g., phone the platforms and talk to real humans, peruse competitor site profiles as examples, and join Facebook sites where hosts can advise each other.

One piece of advice that I took to heart was to put into my site profile how tenants could deal with any issues particular to my site. Consumers deserve fair warnings before plunking down their bucks. One fair warning I gave was about my driveway. I pointed out it was steep, and in the beginning surfaced with loose gravel that would make it difficult or impossible for small front-wheel-drive (FWD) cars to ascend.

There were two warnings that could have been added, but I was not experienced enough to know about them. One was that self-contained RVs or trailer towing vehicles must have strong engines due to the steep driveway, and the second was that self-contained and trailer-towed RVs both must be limited in length due to tight quarters. But I had no idea how powerful their engines needed to be or what maximum RV lengths can be accommodated on my site. So, what were my options in trying to determine these things? I could (1) get experience over time – good, bad, and ugly; (2) ask competitors for advice (right!); (3) seek guidance from RV consultants (but just try to find one in the yellow pages); and (4) ask the hosting platform companies (but they do not make site inspections). The last three took me back to alternative #1, so I hoped that experienced RV owners would know what their engines were capable of and how to shoehorn their RVs into tight slips. I knew those things when I lived in an RV.

The first tenants to arrive were able to drive their RV up to the site; however, they had to park their small FWD car down the hill a little way, still on the property but not adjacent to the RV. They were understanding about my newness to the business and gave me a good review, bless their hearts.

The second tenants never were able to make it up to the RV site. Their towing vehicle may or may not have had sufficient horsepower, but that did not matter as their trailer wallowed in the gravel and the towing vehicle’s rear wheels just spun ineffectually. I tried to refund their deposit, but my newness conspired to make me unable to figure out how to do so.

Friends and relatives also had trouble getting up my driveway, so I bit the bullet and paid $14,900 to have it paved with asphalt.

My third tenants (Evie & Harrison; via Airbnb) have now come and gone. They intended to stay for 28 days in a “skoolie” (refurbished retired school bus), accompanied by their minivan. I do not know how old the skoolie was or how well it had been maintained by previous owners, but it was long past “new.” These tenants drove here from Jacksonville, Florida. For the unaware, the Jacksonville School District is (was?) the only school district in the continental USA that does not own and operate its own school buses. Instead, the district’s buses are owned and operated by individuals, some driving their own buses and others hiring drivers, and the school board contracts with these owner-operators to ferry the kids around. Those buses are kept in service for many years, and their treatment and maintenance levels vary widely.

In the 1970s when I worked at a mountain summer camp for kids, Jacksonville school bus owner-operators were often hired to transport campers to local swimming holes, forest trails, and other attractions. I remember one owner-operators complaining to me that his bus had just blown its engine when being driven uphill on a mountain highway. He related that the bus was old, but thought it would have lasted another five years if it had been limited to flatlands.

When Evie & Harrison arrived, they were unable to back their skoolie into my RV site, so they opted to enter nose first. There were several reasons for that inability, IMO the most important being that their skoolie’s diesel engine was underpowered. It roared loudly as it inched slowly up the paved driveway and was loathe to move forward whenever the steering wheel was turned even slightly away from straight ahead. Another apparent issue was that the turnaround site had shrubby vegetation too close for easy radial steering, so I later used a chainsaw to cut the shrubs back another 6 to 8 ft. A third issue was that we were in the midst of a rainy spell, so the ungraveled ground at the edge of the site was soft. These three issues prevented the skoolie from maneuvering effectively during their 10-point turnings, and as a result the skoolie’s left front tire hit a soft spot and sank into the ground 6 to 8 inches. Because their skoolie had no way to be leveled as typical RVs do, this caused their floor to be slightly tilted in that position.

After being here a little over a week, they decided that the tilted floor was unacceptable. They tried to jockey the skoolie over to harder ground that was only about a yard away to the side, but the skoolie’s engine was unable to extricate the tire. Another issue with their skoolie, and presumably many other school buses, was that its rear axle had neither double-lockable wheels nor positraction, so gunning its engine when one rear tire was spinning on soft ground robbed power to the other wheel that was sitting (and unmoving) on solid ground. As a result, the bus went nowhere, so they gave up on this attempt and called a towing service.

Two days later, a mechanic driving a lifting-flatbed tow truck arrived to pull the skoolie out of the hole so that it could then be driven onto the firmer graveled ground. The mechanic had two ways he could do this. He could either use the truck’s power winch or pull the bus with a chain. He chose the latter. In his first attempt, he attached one end of his chain to the back of his tow truck and the other end to a steel hook welded to the back frame of the skoolie. This attempt ended suddenly when the chain’s end-hook popped off the bus hook. Harrison then re-hooked the chain and they gave it another go, slowly at first, and when that did not provide enough oomph, the mechanic powered up and suddenly soft-jerked the skoolie backward out of the tire-hole. Success! Or so we thought.

Harrison then drove the skoolie forward onto firm ground; however, the bus floor was still tilted. Evie told me the next day that the combination of the bus being tilted for the week and then winched out meant that the frame had been bent or other serious damage inflicted to the bus. They planned to have an insurance claim inspector diagnose it. There were two things wrong with Evie’s assertions: (1) vehicle frames as stoutly manufactured as school busses do not warp by sitting on uneven ground, and (2) the bus was "yanked" backward by the tow truck rather than being moved slowly by winching. Yanking a vehicle with a second vehicle is well-known to sometimes cause serious damage to one or both vehicles. Frankly, I am surprised the mechanic did not use the winch to pull the bus, as he confidently stated that the winch was capable of it. FWIW, I stood back and watched the operation; I did not lift an assisting hand due to red flags and liability concerns. The tenants elected to leave my site sooner than scheduled. I do not know if their plan was to move to a different RV site or to a garage to have the bus repaired.

Their effort to drive away three days later proved once again that their bus was underpowered for the mountains, as even on the asphalt driveway, the skoolie could not move forward even an inch when the front wheels were even slightly steered to the right or left. Also, with the shrubs now trimmed well away from the driveway, the skoolie still had turnaround issues, so they decided to back down the driveway to leave. Their original concern about being hemmed in by shrubbery was thus a third false claim.

As they prepared to leave, Evie informed me that the “damage” was to a shock absorber rather than to the bus frame. I do not know who made this determination, nor if it was even correct, as she had already made several false determinations. Relieved that their bus had not been seriously damaged, I agreed with her request for a pro rata refund, as they stayed for only 11 nights instead of the originally booked 28. Evie then said she would not give my site a review at all. I assumed she realized that their engine was underpowered for the mountains, their skoolie should have had leveling (and stabilizing) equipment, my shrubbery had nothing to do with their turnaround issues, flatlanders like themselves have a lot to learn about mountain living and driving, and they too wanted closure on this event. I therefore reciprocated the intention to give them no review either. We shook hands all around and they left.

However, any relief that I may have felt at that moment was dashed later that day upon learning that she had about-faced and submitted a review (her fourth false claim). I then learned that I cannot see her review until I give her one, kind of like buying a pig in a poke. At that point, my own angst rose to Code Orange. Evie’s unwarranted accusations that the soft ground had damaged their RV implied potentially thousands of dollars of liability, yet she offered no apology upon learning that she misspoke. Now she has given me a review that I cannot see, one that potentially adversely impacts my future income. This concern was aggravated by Airbnb rep “Jose,” who tried to get me to agree with something that Evie told Airbnb. Unfortunately, Jose’s Spanish accent was so strong that I had great difficulty understanding him, and had to ask him to repeat several things that he said. When I could not understand exactly what he was trying to get me to agree to that Evie claimed, I grew annoyed and instead put my own words into my mouth, after which he “agreed” with my wording.

Oh, by the way, Evie and Harrison released their pet cat to wander around outdoors unrestrained. My site profile states that all tenant pets must always be under positive control. I am a biologist who would rather have wildlife in my yard than someone else’ predatory pet.

I am now up in the air as to whether I want to continue to host an RV site at all. I am gestating on Evie’s misspeaking and failure to apologize, her telling me she was going to do one thing before asking for a partial refund and then doing something else after I agreed to the refund, they deliberately ignoring my pet control rule, Jose’s oft-incomprehensible English during communications regarding liability, Airbnb’s one-million-dollar “coverage” not actually being insurance, and my own uncertainty as to what requirements need to be placed on engine horsepower and RV and trailer maximum lengths. I think I will take my RV site off the market until I am back to Code Green and I know the maximum lengths of self-contained RVs and towing-towed combos for my site. In any case, NO MORE SKOOLIES!!!

This 10cm sally was spotted on the exterior of a solar greenhouse at 3400ft msl in Henderson Co., NC, in mid-October this year. iNaturalist identified it as a Blue Ridge Two-lined Salamander (Eurycea wilderae). Note the dorsolateral lines fading into spots halfway along the tail for its specific id. Note the fabulous yellow of the belly for your admiration!

iNaturalist graphs it as most commonly sighted in early October. It is otherwise a shy creature (and my first ever sighting), yet was obvious against the GH wall. iNaturalist was short on reproductive habitats, but did say that it lays eggs in late winter to early spring. Therefore, my guess is that it had come out for mating, and positioned itself well above the ground where its belly would attract attention. Presumably, it is male, but I really dunno.

Need Engineering Trade Journals

I am a member of AAAS, and while that organization’s Science News articles written by its journalism staff are long on who did the research and where they work, their articles are sadly short on the nitty gritty. Fortunately, AAAS also publishes the journal Science, which minutely details cutting-edge research applicable to multiple research disciplines. Good mag, that.

I love to read about science and engineering. Science indeed feeds the former, but not the latter. A long-ago workplace’s engineers used to pass around engineering trade magazines, which discussed details of the latest applications in engineering research. I read them as avidly as my engineering colleagues (I am a wildlife biologist). I miss those mags.

One article in particular, I believe in a magazine entitled Civil Engineering, was written by an engineer who immersed a “hardware cloth” wire grid into saltwater and applied a small current to it. Over a month-long period, a hard solid that looked like cement subsequently “grew” on the grid. He initially suspected it was a marine salt precipitate, but after turning off the power, it did not redissolve. He didn’t want to pay for a chemical assessment, but opined that the material might have been some kind of hydrated compound. Because (I think) he used raw saltwater, I wonder if there might also have been a microbial component. Whatever, thinking that it had potential as a building material, he patented it and dedicated the patent to the public. The popular press would never, ever do articles like that.

More recently, there have been a series of vapid articles in the pop press about a Netherlands architectural firm designing a floating town for Mauritius. Its goal is to stay ahead of global warming’s sea rise. The new town’s buildings will be on rafting platforms joined together and anchored in place within an atoll. The architectural drawings are all pretty faces, of course, but neither pop press articles nor company PR detail such things as what materials comprise the floats, platforms, infrastructure, and buildings. Yawn. How are individual floating pods interconnected? With steel cables? With wooden beams? How will they deal with fouling organisms that glom onto and weigh down the floats? Seascaping projects like this one fascinate me, but all the articles I’ve read about it so far (and I’ve looked hard!) are empty calories to my analytical mind.

Or how about Elon Musk’s fantasy about a Mars colony? What EXACTLY does he plan to do about the physiological impacts to the human body from long-term exposure to low gravity? There’s not a peep about that issue in pop press articles. Hellooo! Earth calling Mars!

So, I plan to spend a little time over the next few weeks looking at engineering and architectural trade mags to see if they might take me where I want to go, and at what cost. Do any of you engineers and architects out there have any pointers? TIA